There’s a hidden key underneath what’s supposed to look like a dog’s that opens Peek-A-Brew’s back door.

You just have to go through the parking lot next to the shop, step over that one beat up truck that’s rotting, and into the backyard of the shop. There’s a couch there, right in front of the fence the separates the backyard and the woods, and the dog is right under.

She learned about this from The Great Yeri herself, who likes to brag about staying out past her curfew with the shop’s number 1 VIP, Kim Saeron, a little too much whenever Irene’s not around.

One time, when she was feeling extra arrogant, she even showed Wendy and an uninterested Seulgi the key. She had smiled so brightly back then, chest puffed and an air of bravado all around. Poor girl didn’t realize Wendy would soon go behind them and use the key to sneak in.

To bake, obviously. Because Jisung likes cake, and so do the elderly ladies, and Wendy won’t let them go a day without her cakes. Also, Irene might forgive her if she did her job.

She had to wait, though. She can’t risk Irene seeing her sneak in. Irene and the other girls waking up to cookies and cake freshly baked seems like a better alternative.

So, she waits in her car, parked a few stores down the street, away from the parking lot, and waits until she thinks she’s safe to go.

At about half past 11, a huge black van drives past her car and Wendy notices Jisung on the passenger seat, grinning as he seems to be excitedly telling the driver—who Wendy assumes is Taeyong, by the fond smile on his lips so similar to Irene’s—a story.

Her heart warms, and she smiles softly as the car drives down the street, turning left when it reaches the end, near the university entrance.

She sets up a countdown for 15 minutes as soon as they disappear and decides by that time Irene will already be upstairs.

And when fifteen minutes pass, she walks to the parking lot, sticking close to the stores. The shop is dark when she passes by it, and the curtains are drawn on the windows again. She looks up at the windows of the second floor and sees light peeking through the curtains.

By the time she’s pushing in the key to the backdoor, forcing herself to not look back at the dark woods, her heart’s racing and her fingers are trembling and something tells her this is bad idea, but it’s too late to go back because as soon as she opens the door, she’s back in her favorite place and she cannot resist baking.

She closes the door quietly and bakes tomorrow’s pastry, trusting Yeri’s claims of having soundproofed the coffee shop because it gets too noisy when a whole group is there and Irene always retreats to their house upstairs.

If getting caught is inevitable, she’ll at least make sure she gets to finish the batter.

-

She’s about to leave the kitchen, a satisfied smile on her lips as she stares fondly at her pastry, when the lights come on and Irene’s voice chills her. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Why are you still awake?” Wendy shoots back, eyes wide as Irene stands intimidating over her. “I’m not stealing or anything, I just couldn’t go home without baking.”

Irene stares back blankly. “I’m not accusing you of anything.” She points to the shelves full of knickknacks outside. “In one of Yeri’s Barbie heads, there’s a camera. If you tried anything, we’d know.” She moves towards the front door, standing in front of it and just staring outside. “It’s just my night to watch.”

“Uh, I’m not sure the camera can see what’s happening in the kitchen,” Wendy says, eyeing the creepy Barbie heads. She walks over to Irene and tries to decipher her line of sight. “And watch what?”

“There are animal skulls hidden around the kitchen, they have cameras, too,” Irene responds calmly, almost eerily. “And watch over them three. Danger lurks around here. Leeteuk’s group takes care of the woods at night, but the city is dangerous, too.”

“I know the city’s kind of a sketchy place, but this isn’t anything like Seoul, is it? It’s still safer than Seoul, and I’m pretty sure there are policemen going around at night.”

“So childish of you to trust those men.” Irene sneers. “Anyway, you wouldn’t understand. But one of us has to stay watch every night.”

Wendy nods, opting not to ask more questions. “Alright then. I finished my job—” she swings her phone around, almost dropping it; Irene rolls her eyes, “—uh, I’m going home.”

Irene eyes her, intense and scrutinizing. “It’s after midnight, are you sure you’re okay?”

“I can handle myself. I have a car anyway, and my apartments just a few minutes away.”

Once again, Irene eyes her. Then she stares out the window of the door. “It’s dangerous tonight. It’s almost the full moon.”

“Uh… honestly, I can go home.”

“Stay in my room,” Irene orders, throwing a key to her. Wendy misses and has to scamper for the keys. “That’s for the main door. Yeri would most likely still be awake and in the living room, ask her where my room is. If she isn’t there, then go knock on the yellow door beside the kitchen and ask Seulgi where my room is.”

“I can just go home,” she says meekly, the keys cold in her hands.

Irene ignores her. “Don’t knock on the green door, that’s Joy’s, and she gets cranky when people interrupt her evening skin care routine.”

“No, really, I can just—”

“Honestly, Wendy, shut up and just go sleep in my bed.” Her voice is sharp, and her brows furrow, face all tense. “You wouldn’t need to stay over if you had just gone home like I told you to.”

Wendy bites back a squeak. “Okay. Do you have a laundry room where I can wash my clothes, though? Or wait, if I wash my clothes then I don’t have anything to wear while sleeping, and—” she rambles to herself, trying to pull a plan out of her sleeve before Irene gets even more annoyed.

“Just ask some clothes from Seulgi,” Irene interrupts, voice thin.

Wendy looks up and finds Irene’s cheeks a subtle tint of pink, rosy in the moonlight. She nods. “Okay, yeah. Alright, I will. Thanks.” She opens her arms, almost like she’s about to hug Irene, then settles for a tap on her shoulder and smiles sheepishly, moving away so she can half-run to the stairs.

“Don’t knock on the green door, huh?” she yells to Irene downstairs, then she covers , remembering the slumbering elderly ladies in the shop.

She hears Irene answer, “Yes.”

“Okay, thanks,” she mutters as she stands in front of the door, pushes the key in, and turns it.

A colorful living room welcomes her, a stark contrast from the coffee shop downstairs. There’s pastel everywhere and the same wooden flooring as the coffee shop’s. The kitchen’s to her right, and she’s guessing that’s Seulgi’s room beside it. It’s by the window that overlooks the streets, and Wendy figures they’re always either in Seulgi’s room or the kitchen when they’re peeking down at her.

She doesn’t have to knock on Seulgi’s room because Yeri’s sitting on one of the two couches, the longer one that’s red, a book on her lap and her phone in her hands. She stares up at Wendy with wide eyes. “What are you doing here, Miss Drunk?”

She blushes at that. “Irene told me to sleep in her room ‘cause it’s already after midnight. I insisted to go home, but she’s… Irene.” She mumbles, right after, “And that was one time.”

Yeri raises an eyebrow. “Her door’s purple.” She jerks her chin towards the stairs behind Wendy. “Take the stairs, to the right.” Yeri blinks. “Don’t go to the left, whatever you do. Joy’s room is there and she gets really sensitive.”

“Okay. Right. I go to the right,” she repeats under her breath. She eyes Yeri’s book and phone. “You’re not going to finish anything by texting.”

“And you’re not my mom,” Yeri shoots back, unfazed. “I told you, Saeron’s number one priority around here, even after hours.” She winks cheekily at Wendy.

Wendy rolls her eyes and trudges up the stairs. There are artworks hung on the wall of the stairs, each of them with Seulgi’s signature on the edge. So much like how her parents used to display every work of art her sister made. Her heart aches as she remembers her sister, who still haven’t returned her calls after the missed call, but she tucks that thought in for another day.

In front of the stairs, there’s a smaller living room of some sort, with more books than the usual gaming stuff Wendy saw in the first floor living room. It’s as vibrant, with pastels and a few bright red furniture to draw the eyes in.

She walks down the hall to her right, looking around the vinyl records on the walls, some of them dating so far back Wendy gasps. This is like a museum of some sorts, which only confirms Wendy’s theory that they’re time travelling girls who like to collect junk, because she’s pretty sure the junk in the shelves in the shop are old, too.

She reaches the end of the dark hallway, reaches the tall windows with long curtains, but there isn’t a purple door anywhere. Instead, there are green and red doors. Yeri must’ve messed up the directions. She’s facing the front door downstairs, but the stairs are in front of her and if you stood on top of them, you’d be facing the other way.

She’s not supposed to look in the rooms that she wasn’t permitted to look into, that’s just rude. But the red door’s opened a little, giving Wendy a full view of the room if she stepped closer, and she needs to pee and doesn’t know where the toilets are.

Wendy peeks in through the crack of the red door, hoping to see anyone inside.

It looks like a typical study, maybe a small library, but a bit darker in vibes. Not dusty or anything, just… dark. The walls are all lined up with bookshelves, almost like the ones in the coffee shop. But they’re full of heavy looking books and more serious knickknacks, one wall just has mason jars and Tupperware.

In the middle of it all, a huge table and some armchairs. The table’s full of books, and other stuff that Wendy can’t figure out.

There’s an old looking couch against one bookshelf, and Seulgi’s asleep on top of it, hugging a huge book to her chest. There’s also something poking out between her body and the back of the couch, something pointy and long—

“What are you doing here?” a voice snaps her out of her sneaking, making her jump up in horror. Joy’s grim face looms over her, shadowy and almost exactly like how she looked like the first day they met.

Wendy almost whimpers. “Yeri messed up her directions and told me to go right, to Irene’s bedroom. I went here because this is my right, and all I saw were red and green doors. Both Irene and Yeri told me not to knock on your door, so I was going to ask Seulgi to help me with directions towards the toilets instead.”

Joy studies her face, frown marring her features. “You’re going to spend the night?”

“Uh,” Wendy squeaks, “I was going to go home but Irene said it’d be too dangerous.”

Joy blinks, turning to peek through the curtains of the tall windows between the two rooms. She eyes the sky, and Wendy stares at the eerie looking trees underneath it. “It’s dangerous, I guess.” Joy looks back at the library, then at Wendy. “What did you see?”

“Just… books and some mason jars and Seulgi drooling,” she answers hesitantly. Is there something she shouldn’t have seen? Her mind immediately goes to the long and pointy thing beside Seulgi. She meets Joy’s doubtful eyes. “Kind of just like the coffee shop downstairs.”

Joy opens , but a bark interrupts her. She looks in the library, alarmed, then at Wendy. “Alright, okay. We all have bathrooms inside our rooms and, uh, wait—” she closes the red door, locking it before she does, then grabs Wendy’s arm and pulls her in the green door. “Don’t tell anyone.”

A small ball of sunshine Wendy’s calf, and another sniffs her socked feet. “You have dogs in your room.”

“Yeah, meet Zero and Ginger. They’ll only be here for a few more days, maybe two weeks,” Joy says, cleaning up the mess on the couch inside her room. She meets Wendy’s eyes. “Don’t tell anyone about them, and I won’t tell anyone you’ve been snooping in our house.”

“I wasn’t snooping—ugh. Fine.” She plops down beside Joy on the couch, the smaller of the two dogs jumping on her lap. “Aren’t Yeri and Irene afraid of all animals? They never help with the pets downstairs.”

“Exactly why you shouldn’t tell them,” Joy grumbles under her breath. “These are the one of the singers in The All Nighter’s dogs. Her name’s Taeyeon, and she just moved out of the house her fellow bar owners sleep in and into an apartment where pets aren’t allowed, so they’re staying with me for now.”

“Until when?”

“Until Taeyeon grows the up and stops pining after the sea ,” Joy snaps, scowling. “Anyway, Ginger’s the bigger one, and my favorite because he doesn’t pee on my bed!” she says, mostly to the happy little pupper on Wendy’s lap.

Wendy (who she assumes is) Zero’s hair. “Who’s the sea ?”

“She lives a few floors down your apartment. Her name’s Jessica, and she quit being manager and singer of The All Nighter after accepting an important task from Kangta.” She looks up at Wendy, then smiles. “Kangta’s the mayor’s right hand man. He’s in charge of the city while Gramps is out.”

She feels even more confused by the second, trying to keep track of the names in her head. “Gramps?”

“Well, he’s nobody’s grandpa, actually. But he’s Sunny’s uncle and he practically raised most of us.” Joy grins, pulling Ginger to her lap. “Having fun with the town lesson, Wen? Don’t you need to pee?”

“I think you brought more questions than answers. And I’d rather stay here listening to you than pee.”

“Still so hung up on finding out what big secret we’re hiding?” Joy asks.

Wendy lets out a loud snort, brows raised disbelievingly. “Who wouldn’t be? I’m not sure if you realized, but your town has the weirdest people on Earth. Your mart doesn’t have actual rules, the biggest bar has the most suspicious drinks—I drank for almost twelve hours, and I’m not dead, hella suspicious—and Peek-A-Brew is—”

Joy smirks, staring right into Wendy’s eyes. “What?”

“You’re just—” she shrugs sheepishly as Joy chuckles, “weird.”

“I can honestly say that for a lot of other towns and cities I’ve visited.” Joy turns around in her seat, looks out the window at the bright moon above the woods, the trees rustling around. “And you didn’t drink for twelve hours straight. Sunny told us you only drank the eight most popular drinks and sang and danced the whole time.”

“Still so much more than what I thought I could tolerate,” Wendy grumbles. Joy looks at her with pity. “Yes, I can’t handle alcohol.” She notices the door beside Joy’s table and stands. “I need to pee.”

“Go nuts,” Joy says, gesturing majestically at the door.

Wendy sends her another glare before entering the bathroom. And it’s huge. Or, at least, bigger than Wendy’s apartment’s bathroom. It has all these creams and other products littered on the counter, and most of them are stuff Wendy has never heard of before.

Honestly, Wendy thinks their whole place is full of stuff they all made themselves—from the beauty products in Joy’s bathroom, to the ingredients in jars hidden in the fridge downstairs.

She’s about to ask Joy about them when she exits the bathroom, but Joy speaks before she can. “You want to go up to the rooftop?”

She looks up from Zero, who’s her calf again, then looks out the window. “You have a rooftop?”

Joy hums, nodding her head. “It’s Irene’s favorite place. She loves the sky. I do, too, but more on the constellations and stuff. She just likes the aesthetics.”

“You’re into Astronomy?”

“And Astrology,” Joy adds. “You can kind of call them my passion.” She stands, waving her hands around dramatically. “Tarot cards, crystal balls…” Her gaze lands on Wendy and her smirk widens. “You’re going to get the biggest heartbreak of your life before the year ends, and you’re going to blame it all on yourself.”

Wendy laughs nervously. Joy’s eyes had completely changed, stopped being playful. “Don’t jinx it, you .”

Joy frowns at her, lips curling and eyes changing. She’s clearly offended, and Wendy almost laughs. “There’s no such thing as jinxing it, Wen. It’s all in the fates. You’re destined to get your heart absolutely shattered the moment you walked in the shop premises.”

“Yeah? Are you going to hurt me, or something, just to make sure that prophecy of yours comes true?”

Joy shakes her head, back to being playful. “Can’t touch your heart, Wen. Only words can, and I’m not one to hurt people with words.” She winks. “I prefer guns.”

Wendy can only roll her eyes, having no response to that. She picks Zero up, smiling as he her arm.

“Fine, don’t believe in my warning.” Joy grins and raises her arms. “Let’s go up to the roof.” She reaches towards Wendy with a grin that widens as soon as the other girl takes her hand. “It’s amazing up there. Besides, the dogs need a little air.”

-

The rooftop isn’t anything special. It’s not full of fairy lights, or forts, or plants. There’s just one table in the middle, four chairs around it, and what seems like a mattress pushed against the wall beside the stairs, sheltered from the rain by the roof that cuts off before the middle of the rooftop.

It’s… plain. But somehow it feels homey. It overlooks the woods, and the night sky above. There are words written on the walls, vandalism in others’ eyes, but a diary in Wendy’s. ‘Kang Seulgi is a s o f t i e,’ says one wall, ‘and you’re a tall piece of ,’ it says right under.

There are words Wendy doesn’t understand either, written in languages she doesn’t speak, and too many names that are familiar (names she heard around the university, from gossips shared between customers) with little to no context clues to tell her who they are and how they’re related to the four occupants.

There are more familiar names like Johnny, Taeyong, Yuri, Sunny, and Seohyun—all written in different handwritings in different spaces on one wall. It’s almost like the walls of a public toilet, but rather than bullying, it’s friendly teasing.

“I can’t believe Irene let you write on the walls,” Wendy muses, still looking around as Joy walks over to a fridge Wendy didn’t notice was there. There are writings on the transparent ceiling, too, and Wendy snorts at the insults and jabs towards Irene, that she most likely couldn’t do anything about.

Joy shrugs. “She hated it at first. But we would always write while hanging out up here, and after a while she just stopped painting over them.” She gently kicks Zero away before he can enter the fridge. “It used to be just dates at first, then there were confessions, insults, song lyrics. It just became like this.”

She looks up at one particular ‘I love you’ written above the fridge with a soft smile, hand pausing on top of it as she opens the fridge. She gets a sad kind of faraway look in her eyes. “She writes here, too, sometimes. Must’ve found the sentimental value in it.”

“It doesn’t look dirty, anyway.” Wendy catches the can of soda Joy throws her, Joy settling for a can of beer herself. “It looks like a diary.” She watches as Joy plops down the mattress and follows as soon as the taller pats the space next to her. “So, seems like you also hang out with a whole lot more people than just you four.”

Joy pushes Zero away with a scowl and a soft ‘no’, the little guy jumping on Wendy to pester her instead. “The locals hang out with each other.”

The fizz flows out as soon as she pops open the can, dripping down her hands and onto her lap. She hurriedly drinks from the can, feeling itch at the carbonated drink, putting the drink out of Zero’s reach. As soon as she can, she speaks, “Locals?”

“Yeah, like, mostly owners of the oldest shops around here.” Joy drinks from her own can and hums appreciatively at the taste. Ginger, who was just staring at them at first, runs over to Joy and makes himself comfortable against her legs. “You know how Yuri and her friends own The All Nighter, and we own Peek-A-Brew, and the Devil’s Mart is owned by Heechul and his gang.”

“And Johnny and his friends own the game center—”

“Fire Truck,” Joy supplies.

“—what’s the flower shop’s name?”

Joy pauses, eyes darkening. There’s that same tension when Seulgi was in the mart, almost as if she’s hurt just knowing the flower shop—and the people who own it—exists. She sighs. “I’m not sure. I think they changed it. It used to be Butterfly, but after the feud—” Joy stops, shaking her head.

“Am I not allowed to ask what feud it is?”

There’s a smile playing on Joy’s lips as she turns to stare at Wendy, eyes clouded. “Yeah, you’re not.”

Wendy nods, raising her can to drink, but stopping inches away from her lips. “I hope you figure this out. It seems like you’re hurting about the feud, and it seems like you and all the other locals are… some sort of, uh—”

“Do you want to say family but are too embarrassed to?” Joy drawls with that same mischievous smirk she always has.

Her cheeks burn as she shrugs and clears . “Some sort of family,” she finishes. “Honestly.”

“You and me both, Wen.” Joy takes another gulp of her beer, and Wendy spies the name ‘The All Nighter’ on the can. “I hope so, too.”

“So,” she almost screams out, shocking Joy, and the two dogs. She grins sheepishly. “How are you guys the locals?”

Joy rolls her eyes, one of Wendy’s favorite looks on the tall girl. She combs through Ginger’s hair with a thoughtful look. “We’ve been here longest.”

Ginger whines against Joy’s leg, obviously liking the affection. Wendy smiles, before saying, “But you’re young.”

Joy sends her a look. “Our families have been here the longest. This used to be a really small town, just a few houses and lots of greens. Then, Lee Soo Man, that’s the, uh, mayor, Gramps, his… uh… family adopted a few other families from outside. Kangta and his group was one of the first ones.”

“Then you decided to branch out and build your own community?”

“I guess so, yeah. And then others started to seek shelter in this town, and it grew until it became a city.”

Wendy tries to imagine little Joy and little Irene running around the town with their parents, getting fond smiles from the other locals. She smiles at the thought. “Sounds like a packed history.”

Joy laughs. “Believe me, it is.” She gestures towards Wendy, gaze up on the glass roof, words written in white ink. “How’s your stay here?” she asks, changing the subject too obviously.

Wendy pretends she doesn't notice. “I just told you it’s weird,” she retorts with a scoff. “The people are weird, the shops are weird. The gossips are weird.”

“Is this about those students complaining about seeing some grown men streaking in the park last week? Because that’s not a gossip.”

Wendy’s lips curl in disgust. “No, I never heard of that.”

“Good thing you never saw it either. I had to dip my eyes in ing hot brew to wipe off the image,” Joy mutters in the most scandalized tone. “I still remember the goosebumps, though.”

She chooses to ignore the wiping off the image part, that’s just Joy being a drama queen. “See? This place is weird.”

“How did you get here?” Joy asks, tone suddenly changing.

She almost bristles at the interrogation laced in Joy’s tone, but she just sits straighter and leans on her hands beside her. “My sister used to attend the university. She’s pursuing her master’s, though, so she had to fly back to Canada, and I took her place here.” Wendy frowns. “She never told me about the rumors.”

“Because then you won’t come here.” There’s something else entirely different about Joy’s tone, almost like she’s sad but trying to be angry. Wendy doesn’t understand it one bit. Joy looks up at her and she smiles. “You seem like the cowardly type, you wouldn’t enter this place if you knew.”

“I really wouldn’t,” she agrees with a chuckle. “But hey! At least I got to meet you.”

Joy rolls her eyes sassily, but there’s a soft smile on her lips. “Yeah, yeah. Keep your pants on.” She snorts at Wendy’s frown. “So, you’re not scared of us anymore?”

Wendy shrugs. She’s not, but sometimes she is. “It’s not the full moon yet,” she says, absentmindedly scratching Zero’s back. Zero’s ears perk up, and he turns to give Wendy an almost goofy smile.

“Ah, still don’t trust us, then.”

“Can you blame me? The rumors about you killing all those boys may just be rumors, but them disappearing aren’t. There are no traces of them.”

There’s silence between them as Joy opens another can of beer, gaze still up on the night sky. There’s rustling in the trees and Wendy turns to look, only finds the trees moving in several directions, almost like they’re playing with each other.

“It’s Leeteuk’s group, playing around as usual,” Joy answers her unvoiced questions. “Their only free time’s when they’re guarding the woods. Most of our source materials are there, and it’s what hides us from the outside world.”

“Why is Irene guarding the shop, then, if there are already those guarding the woods?” Wendy asks, still watching the trees rustle. There’s a yell of joy somewhere, then some laughter. Wendy wishes Irene had someone to laugh with downstairs, but it seems like the older girl wouldn’t like the company, anyway.

“Some threats can make it in,” Joy whispers, and when Wendy turns, her gaze is on her. “One per month.”

Joy doesn’t look away, even as Wendy just knows her own eyes turn hurt. Is she, Wendy, a threat to them? “So, you killed all those boys to protect yourselves?”

Joy sighs, rolling her eyes. “We d—honestly, believe what you want to believe. Keep being fixated on the rumors. Fuel them with your own assumptions. But listen, how we’re treating you—or at least, me, since I can’t speak for the others—this is real, okay? This is real friendship.”

Having nothing to reply, she purses her lips and goes back to watching the trees, ignoring the warning sirens in her head, ignoring the beating of her heart, asking her to believe or at least hope that Joy’s not lying.

When Joy doesn’t add anything, and the silence stretches out too long for it not to mean something, Wendy sighs. “Are your lives in danger?” she asks in a small voice, fear overflowing.

Because maybe she’s not scared of disappearing. Maybe she does trust those four, or at least her heart does. Her brain is on its own, feeding her doubts and ‘what-ifs’ and Wheein’s and Hyejin’s childlike eyes begging her not to disappear. But she is scared for them.

What’s so terrifying out there that they have to guard the woods every night? That one of them stays up each night to protect the other three?

That they’re so closed off and there was fear in Yeri’s eyes when she first came in the shop?

Joy shifts beside her, Ginger jumping off her lap and running to the other side of the rooftop. “We’ll be fine,” she assures.

Wendy can only hope that’s not just Joy’s usual overflowing confidence talking, and something about Joy’s tone tells her Joy thinks the same way.

She hugs Zero to her chest as they all stare at Ginger sniffing at the wall, probably at all the ruckus in the woods. Then, to herself, mutters, “We’ll be fine."

A/N:

Title's from Halsey's Castle.

I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter (because I'm a hoe for maknae line x Wendy friendship almost as much as I am for 94 line). Leave a comment if you can! Thank you all for the support!

thepurplewan